Hand Cav: with 94 attak, WOW OK! (not even gendarme reached that attk but fine)
HEAVY ranged cav: While there is Literally an elephant in the game with a cannon on its back, and that has a Light Ranged Cav tag on it!
On top of tags, with all cards and imperial upgrades:
This guy has an 61 “Ranged Attack” with a 2 rate of fire, that is faster than any Skirm/musk/dragoon in the game!
And the ranged attack has an Area of effect 1, like Siege ele/Flaming arrow/Urumi/etc, its of 2 pop only!
Cost as much as Hussar, and ther is also a card to convert all hussar into Hakkapalite
BUT this is not all :
In trample mode they have a 70 damage, in 3 Area , even the legacy OP gendarmes have 2 AoE
The only units with 3 Area of effects in the game are Artillery!
And this area damage is with a rate of fire of 1.5, Imagine some front Hakka in trample mode
of 3 area damage, and other firing with 1 Area damage from behind, and each Hakka in the back can inflict 94 melee damage if some units ambush it!
I thought its ok-ish to have such absurdly high stats, so I ran some tests (50 hakk vs simmilar pop units), mostly against India and Lakota:
Musk (even like Sepoy) in melee mode is a waste against these
The only units that EASILY SLAUGHTERED them was Lakota Rifle Riders.
As for Dragoon/Zamburaq , are needed in equal pop to counter these! that too! is not a very hard counter, if some of Hakka are in Trample mode!
Even in fights with Massed armies! with a little micro and mix or trample/ranged/melee mode, these units literally turn the tides of battle.
With good micro they bring shame to any anti-cav. “Most” anti-cavs “feels” like a light counter rather than being a hard counter to these.
I thought Rajputs did fine-ish against them, utill I saw rajputs easily Slaughtering Blacriders, that have 40 MELEE resist! But same rajputs struggled to kill hakkapalits with 10 RANGED resist.
{More results against others civs, will be appreciated, IMO there is a scope for Hakkapalits to be nerfed, simply coz they dont perform typically bad, even against their anti units, and they defy the basic law of the game that, every unit have usually, 2 good counters against it}
I still preffer the OP gendarmes against me, over these, as most civs.
O————K————!
As a player from AOE2, this is like having War Elephants that can two shots halberdier while taking no damage from them, full trample damage and can tank crazy number of arrow shots.
I see Swede, so hopefully this unit gets nerfed to the same level as most other units in a future patch.
Sweden army is confusing. Caroleans fight like they are dragoons (bonus vs cav on ranged), and their dragoon seems to fight like they are musketeers (high damage with no multipliers)
Edit: And btw, I read somewhere that on trample mode you do self damage, like 50% of dmg done is back to you (I never tested it, don’t know if it is true)
They just buffed those cavs last patch because they tought it was too weak as noone is using them… They don’t realise poeple dont use them because caros are even more op lategame, so there is no reason to do something else lol
You are forgetting one aspect : their hp and range resist.
Those things are expensive and frail, which isn’t a very good combo. They are slower than goons that will completly shred them, and unless you use the card to get hakkas age 2, goons are available at the same time as hakkas.
BUT
Hakkas can be available age 2, in which they are absolutly busted with almost 0 counter available.
They are one of the best raider units, with more speed than hussars, more melee damage than Uhlans, ok siege damage, a range attack to finish villagers.
AND
They are the absolute best flanking cavalry in the game. A rear charge with trample last second will absolutly shred anything it touches.
AND
Who expects cav from sweden ? Like who will pre-emptively make 15 dragoon to be safe from those guy ? NO-BO-DY
Summary :
The unit isn’t OP, cause dragoon type units are way to good at punishing it.
But i don’t get why no swede player get two stables up at one point (it’s not like swedes lack wood in general) and train a double batch of hakkas instead of 10 more caroleans after the first 50.
Sneak them around or behind your opponent army, move in with your carolean at the same time and trade the opponent skirm mass down.
Your opponent will have to invest into his own stables to train dragoons, that’s a good minute before they come up, meaning during that period you dominate any fight you take (unless you suicide).
The dragoons will then get shredded by carolean and won’t contribute into reducing the carolean mass at all, and you never train hakkas again ! Making that investment a pure waste while yours was highly beneficial !
No big deal, even uhlans can reach 94 attack with all cards and upgrades invested but that doesn’t make them super OP imbalanced unit.
They’re basically uhlans with stronger stats except the ranged attack, hence the heavy cav tag is appropriate.
But they have only 6 range (Gets to 8 range with the arsenal upgrade I believe), Low HP and only 10 ranged resist which means they badly lose to dragoons if kited properly. They can’t tank damage, they die just like uhlans.
Overall, I don’t see a reason that Hakkapelits can be as versatile as hussars and Swedes have access to both. Also Swede hussars have pretty good cards which makes them really strong in lategame compared to Hakkas. Hakkas can be used only in a few niche circumstances, such as raiding or to win a heavy skirm mass. Otherwise, Hussars are the go-to cav unit.
LOL SO TRUE! but caros also have 30 resist unlike any musk in the game
@RDX072942 Ive seen n played against people just spamming ONLY Hakapalites against India and China etc and just win.
They dont have any, second hard counter, other than dragoons, that too in equal pop. when in action there is certainly a scope of nerfing these.
Especially the Area damage in RANGE mode.
Or change just Heavy Ranged Cav tag to something more counterable ! this is the ONLY Heavy ranged Cav in the game IMO
As India, Sepoys should easily win them, make sure you put them on stagger mode to prevent the area damage. Zamburaks are really fast and they should do quite decently. Hell, howdahs melt them.
As china however, they don’t have really good anti cavs except manchus. That’s their prominent weakness.
Once again, They only have 6 range. Imagine dragoons or muskets with 6 range dude…can be never good. Anything can kite such a unit.
I think the design of Swedes allow for very highly upgraded Caroleans and Hakkapalits to the point that they start breaking the counter system, but the crux is that it takes a lot of time to get to that point. Also please don’t compare the trample mode with cuirassiers, the trample mode on cuirassiers is broken.
Actually there is Lakota Rifle Rider that have the same tag.
I’m thinking way to balance the Hakkapelit is by looking at what unit they are first. On legacy hackapel are a merc version of Uhlan a low hp high dmg cav, the DE version add short ranged attack on them and they able to deal aoe damage on both mode.
Compared to Uhlan they have higher hp but lower ranged resist although when fully upgraded with all card Hakka still have more effective hp vs ranged attack compared to Hakka, from this I’m thinking if they’re so good at destroying their counter even with equal population number, the balancing should be by reducing their base hp from 230 to 215, and ranged move speed to 6.5 while maintaining melee speed at 6.75.
No, just take a look at this. My friend has compared them using the scenario editor which seems a little bit bugged.
A sepoy costs 90 f 30 c = 120 resources, A hakkapelit costs 90 f 110 c = 200 resources
Hence 120 x 5 = 600, 200 x 3 = 600, 5 sepoys vs 3 hakkas, same resource count. He could have used the stagger mode and kept 5 sepoys alive with two on low HP. Although Hakkas just run like idiots in the end, seems like a bug. But sepoys would win anyway.
A zamburak costs 60 f 60 c = 120 resources, again 5 zambs vs 3 hakkas. He wasn’t able to kite for some reason (ofc it’s bugged), again zambs win, but they shouldn’t lose a single HP while they kite because they’re really fast.
A howdah costs 250 f 350 c = 600 resources. 1 howdah vs 3 hakkas, Howdahs 2 shot each hakka with a great 16 range and win.
Hakkas do have impressive ranged attack and melee stats but 6 range and 10% ranged resistance is a huge downside.
Now, you have to prove me how sepoys get “slaughtered” and zambs beat hakkas “in equal pop” and “Howdahs get melted!” before discussing about nerfing them or spreading any misconceptions.
They nerfed harqubusiers to function similarly to hakkas because they had a 1.5 rate of fire (before 2 to 3 patches). And you literally jumped into a conclusion that there was no other ranged heavy cav units in the game from what you said ^^ when Harqubusiers and rife riders exist.
Yes, but they do the same damage in melee mode as they do in trample mode without a speed reduction. Whereas other heavy cavs have their speed reduced when they are switched to trample mode. Hence, it’s broken in the case of cuirassiers.
I am using Swedes in treaty right now and the funny thing is I nearly posted a similar topic, but asking how to use that unit, as I cant find any reason to.
I used some in trample mode against Gurkhas and got worse result than with hussars. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but the only good result I got was against ranged heavy infantry, as the range attack at least mitigate the opponent melee bonus against cav.
I’m gonna just say Hakkas are not OP. They are certainly counterable. They recently received a 10 HP buff. Anytbing more of the buffs to them might actually make them broken, and they don’t need a nerf too. They’re fine as they’re now. If you ever see swede players making consecutive 5 unit batches of Hakkas and able to win most fights with the huge Hakka spam…It’s not the Hakkas that are OP, it is the Torp boom that is OP.
yes they compact together like ryuter in range mode ! with a 2 rate of fire!
scenerio editor is trash to test real scenerios, where it is not always possible for some civs to match the pop vs pop, while others have a 100+ pop available for army! try 1v1 with 50 vs 50 at imperial and all cards in from both sides
With and without micro! with mode change and without mode changes! U will find just tiny bit of micro/ode change will change the results!! 40hakka vs 50 sepoys get slaughtered, 30pop vs pop howdahs leave 20 hakka left, 50 vs 50 rajputs leave 17, 50 vs 50 zam leave 11. 100 zams does destroy 50 hakka though
there are multiple cases when the swedish player will go to age 4 and just spam hakka
Really? They used to have both Light and Heavy cavalry tag on legacy, making them also countered by Dragoon in exchange for their Heavy infantry multiplier. I don’t know if DE change their tag.
I took time to do that comparison without the use of scenario editor (Everything upgraded with all cards, allied with brits consulate and had all arsenal upgrades on Hakkas). The results are the same. All anti cavs do counter them as intended except the melee infantry since hakkas have a ranged attack. Hakkas are not strong as you think. You don’t need 100 zambs to beat 50 hakkas lmao. 50 zambs are more than enough, just kite with them. 50 sepoys still beat 40 hakkas as it should (You need to know when to switch them to stagger and melee mode). Howdahs still 2 shot them. 50 Hussars beat them too since they’re really versatile. I think maybe at lower elo, people might assume they’re strong because of their melee and ranged attack stats and forget the 10% ranged resist, low HP and 6 range.
What do you mean? haha. You’re gonna kite with 6 range against the most of the units in the game that have atleast 12 range? Only thing that you can do with them is do some damage on ranged attack and switch them to melee to finish off the low HP units. That’s it, I’m done with this thread lol.
